NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 289 



right bank of the river, well known to previous visitors, and 

 called Puerta de la Losilla ; and one day we took a mule-cart to 

 Moscardon, a village some dozen miles above Albarracin, which 

 is said in Zapater's Catalogue to produce Erebia evicts; the 

 day was, however, not favourable, with but little sun, and the 

 only species not seen elsewhere was Anthrocera rhadamanthus 

 var. cingulata, of which we captured a few examples. 



Nowadays there are so many species of lepidoptera which 

 are only recognizable with certainty by an examination of their 

 genitalia, that I felt it necessary to submit specimens of all the 

 species of which there could be any doubt to my friend Mr. A. L. 

 Eayward, who most kindly undertook to make preparations of 

 those organs, and to whom I am greatly indebted for so doing. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 

 Note on the Egg-laying of Hesperia sylvanus. — It is stated 

 in ' Butterflies of the British Isles ' by South, p. 193, and also in 

 Tutt's ' British Butterflies,' vol. i. p. 136, on the authority of the 

 late Mr. Ullyett, of Folkestone, that the female of this butterfly 

 deposits its eggs within the sheath of a grass-stem. I recently had 

 the opportunity, in Hungary, of watching several examples of this 

 butterfly deposit, and in all cases the egg was laid in exactly the 

 same manner. The butterfly alighted on a blade of grass almost 

 parallel to its longer axis. It then curved its abdomen round 

 beneath the blade and deposited an egg almost in the centre of the 

 blade. Most of the eggs were laid on the lower surface of the grass 

 blade, but a few were placed on the upper surface when the lower 

 surface was the more exposed of the two. Mr. Ullyett's assertion, 

 unquestionably incorrect, is the more remarkable, as he was an 

 extremely accurate observer ; and the explanation probably lies in 

 the fact that he mistook a female of Hesperia thaumas (lined) for 

 this species, as thaumas adopts that method of laying its eggs which 

 he describes. — N. Charles Rothschild; Arundel House, Kensington 

 Palace Gardens, W. 



Parnassius apollo in Germany. — " In Deutschland verboten " 

 is a legend not unfamiliar to the tourist surveying the bookstalls 

 of Lucerne and Vienna. But it has now achieved an extended 

 significance, and collectors of palaBarctic butterflies will be interested 

 to hear that the capture of Parnassius apollo has been forbidden 

 throughout the German Empire by an order of the Government. 

 The order — for information of which I am indebted to M. Charles 

 Oberthur — has not come a day too soon, for the extermination of 

 Apollo, already complete in the mountains of Silesia, is threatened 

 elsewhere, despite the independent action of the Bavarian Govern- 

 ment to put an end to over-collection of the species in the Bavarian 

 highlands. A close season of a few years for a special butterfly is 



ENTOM. — OCTOBER, 1913. Z 



